Laboratory Experiments

• Key Features of Laboratory Experiments:

  Control- in an artificial environment where the scientist can control different variables to identify the effects they have. Testing hypotheses in the aim to discover causal laws. The researcher must obtain a set of subjects, who must be identical in all relevant aspects and then divide them into two groups: the experimental group and the control group.
• Key Features of Laboratory Experiments:

  Cause & Effect- the condition of both groups is measured at the start and at the end. If there was a change in the experimental group but not the control, it is concluded that the change is caused by the differing treatments. This cause-and-effect relationship then allows us to predict what will happen under the same conditions in future events.
• Practical Issues: Open Systems

  Keat and Urry argue that they are only suitable for studying closed systems where the researcher can control and measure all variables to make precise predictions (like physics or chemistry). Whereas society is an open system, countless factors are present during a current situation, interacting with each other in complex ways. Making them difficult to identify and control, making lab studies unsuitable for studying social phenomena.
• Practical Issues: Individuals are Complex

  Therefore it isn't possible to 'match' the members of the control and experimental group exactly. While this is possible for samples of chemicals, but no two humans are the same.
• Practical Issues: Studying the Past

  Cannot be used to study the past as the variables acting in the past cannot be controlled. Also, researchers are unable to keep people in laboratory conditions for long periods to study them overtime.
• Practical Issues: Small Samples

  Usually only use small samples, making it difficult to investigate large-scale social phenomena. E.g. we cannot study all or a large majority of members of a major religion. Small samples carry the risk that a correlation is assumed a causation, it could be due to chance, or an anomalous individual could distort the data.
• Practical Issues: The Hawthorne Effect

  Subjects are aware they are being studied, they may then feel they have to act differently. The 'subject reactivity' of the experiment will invalidate the results, since it depends on the subjects response to the variables researchers introduce into the situation.
• Practical Issues: The Expectancy Effect


  A form of experimenter bias. Referring to what the researcher expects to occur in a study actually affecting the actual outcome. This can occur by the experimenter consciously or unconsciously treating the subjects in a way which influences their responses. It then produces the effect they hypothesised.
• Ethical Issues: Informed Consent

  The researcher requires informed consent; meaning they gain their agreement to take part, having first explained the study to them in ways they can understand- its nature and purpose, the risks and effects it could cause, and the uses of the findings. Though sometimes explaining the aims before the study can be self-defeating; in many cases the subjects have to be deceived because if they knew the true purpose, they would act differently.
• Ethical Issues: Harm to Subjects

  Research shouldn't normally harm subjects; however, some argue that minor or temporary harm can be justified ethically if the results produce significant social benefits. Research should seek to do good; meaning that when one group appears to be benefitting from their conditions, the other group is then allowed access to the same treatments. An example is when students are subjected to different teaching methods- if one is more effective, its offered to both groups.
• Theoretical Issues: Reliability

  Positivists see laboratory experiments as highly reliable as the original experimenter can specify the standardised conditions to allow for replications; it produces quantitative data so results can be compared to the original baseline study; and it is a detached and objective method as the researcher merely manipulates variables and records the results, values have no influence on the conduct or outcome of the study.
• Theoretical Issues: Hypothesis Testing

  Laboratory experiments can isolate and control any variable that is of interest to the researcher, they are an effective way of testing hypotheses and predictions.
• Theoretical Issues: Representativeness

  Positivists aim is to make generalisations about wider social structures which shape individual's behaviour. However, there is the risk that lab studies lack external validity meaning we cannot be confident that the results are true for the wider population. Firstly due to the small samples being at greater risk of being an unrepresentative cross-section of the wider population. Secondly the level of control makes the circumstances more unnatural, which may be untrue outside of the lab setting.
• Theoretical Issues: Internal Validity

  Their findings may not even be true for the subjects of the experiment themselves, and therefore the generalisations are invalid too. This is linked to the artificiality of the environment producing the Hawthorne Effect- subjects simply react to being studied, doing so then produces invalid data.
• Theoretical Issues: Interpretivism & Free will

  Interpretivists argue that humans are fundamentally different from natural phenomena that are studied by the natural sciences. Unlike these objects, we have free will and choice. Our behaviour isn't caused by external factors, so it cannot be explained through cause-and-effect statements. Instead our actions can only be understood in terms of the choices we freely make on the basis of our own subjective meanings. Making laboratory experiments unsuitable.